Almost 32 years after the devastating earthquake which destroyed the  whole coast of Montenegro and under the emotion of the recent earthquake that hit Japan, an EU-funded awareness campaign on earthquakes under the slogan “Need to Know to be Ready to React”  just started launching the project through a wide media campaign.

The first step was the organisation of a large press conference which targeted the whole population involving television, radio and newspapers with news, interviews, promotional articles on dailies and radio and TV spots (see spot below).

But the main aim of the awareness project is to educate 5,000 school children between 10 and 11 years of age to  better be prepared and ready to react in case of a potential earthquake.

Zoran Begovic, Director General of the Montenegrin Sector for Emergency Management,  during the press conference said “our goal is to create a system in which sensitized citizens are able to face  challenges such as those coming from earthquakes. The best help in a disaster is the help  citizens can provide initially for themselves if they are prepared and educated in advance. If we cannot prevent earthquakes we can better be prepared to mitigate their consequences”.

The 40,000 euro awareness project  - which is part of the EU-funded Programme on Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Natural and Man-made Disasters (PPRD South), is targeting 5,000 school children in 62 primary schools in Montenegro who will learn how to protect themselves and their families by knowing how to master the necessary skills.

 

Prepared by the Emergency Management Sector of the Ministry of Interior and Public Administration of Montenegro.

Montenegro is located in Southeast Europe, it has an area of 13,812 km², with the total of 190,212 households and 620,145 inhabitants, according to the 2003 census (based on the so-called new concept of domicile population). The capital city is Podgorica. Land borders of Montenegro are 614 km long, while the sea border is 293 km long, which equals half of its land borders. Montenegro has sovereignty over a part of the Adriatic with the accompanying aquatic area up to 12 nautical miles away from land (22.2 km). The climate shows features of the continental, Mediterranean and mountain climate.

Prepared by the Emergency Management Sector of the Ministry of Interior and Public Administration of Montenegro.

A national management system for emergency situations has been established in Montenegro with the setting up of the Sector for Emergency Management  in 2006 as an organizational unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Public Administration which provides for functional integration of all existing relevant institutions involved in monitoring process: Ministries of Defence, Economy, Agriculture, Culture, Education, etc., and other administrative authorities, such as the  local Self Government bodies, operational units, police, army and the civil sector.

This presentation was made by the National PPRD South National Correspondent at the First National Correspondents Meeting organised in Rome on 21-22 July 2009.

In preparation to their first meeting the PPRD South asked all the National Correspondents to prepare a presentation on the main features of their respective national Civil Protection system with the objective to create an initial shared knowledge base among the PPRD South National Correspondents Network and the PPRD South team. Almost all the National Correspondents prepared such presentation including the main information on both the legislative and institutional framework, as well as on the organizational setting of the National Civil Protection Authority and the overall Civil Protection system in their respective countries.

Download the presentation